nibot | Entries tagged with career

I'm getting kind of restless, starting to think more and more about what I'll do after I'm done here, next year. Not in any kind of concrete sense, but in the restless sort of daydreaming way. Next year, next year. I'm not actually any closer to graduation in any real sense, mind you, but I feel the gears in my mind turning, setting up for departure.

Ryan's talking about Oakland. When I first heard this, I thought I was over the bay area. But the more it rests in my mind, the more perfect it seems. The more the East Bay sounds like home. The cool weather, wearing hoodies, drinking good coffee, the bad smelling bart trains, all the good food, the spectacular view of the bay, being near UC Berkeley and being connected again to the real world.

San Diego also sounds appealing. Not the horrible sprawling North County, but the bikeable, diverse, funny old neighborhoods around North Park, Hillcrest, Normal Heights. The ocean and UCSD.

I met with Adrian today and he presented and I agreed to the whole Louisiana Plan. I wish there were some source of informed yet impartial advice on these things, because it's so hard to know what's right, what's best. But for now I'm moving to California in January and then to Louisiana six months later and the Girl is coming too. I've always had a Plan before but this seems so much a shot in the dark. It's an adventure that leads I don't know where and the plan may yet change before it is realized, but this is how it lays before us for the time being. I talked to the Girl on the phone tonight and she was excited, as am I, about the heading out, the packing up of the car and the heading out into the world. This is how it plays.

Looking at my old college applications, I was surprised to discover that I listed "Mechanical Engineering" as my "alternate major." Interesting. I also listed my 8th grade yearbook superlative as an "honor/award." Funny.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that I should stay here in Berkeley next semester... it's just that Berkeley's course offerings are so much better than San Diego's (with part of the problem that it seems that so many courses at UCSD begin in the Fall and must be taken as a three-quarter sequence).

I am finding the graduate school application process incredibly frustrating. I'm pretty sure I want to study physics, or possibly computer science theory, but this is not my undergraduate background exactly. It seems that the way to get into a good physics graduate program (say, Princeton, Columbia, UChicago, ...) is to be a physics undergrad and do excellently. I did quite a lot as an undergrad — definitely more than most — but I don't feel strong in any particular area. To whit, it feels almost absurd to apply to a graduate physics program when I've taken only three upper division physics courses. Indeed, many of the physics graduate programs explicitly state that having a bachelor's degree in physics is a prerequisite to applying to their graduate program. I'm increasingly of the opinion that perhaps the best route might be for me to continue taking courses through Extension until I can put together a strong application to the particular program of my choosing. On the other hand, the AS&T program at Berkeley would probably be pretty good for me too.

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I'm so conflicted. When I get negative vibes from Google I start scheming for how I could make my application better, I start envisioning just how cool it would be to work there in these pre-IPO days, along such luminaries as Rob Pike himself... But then — I am so weird — the positive vibes scare me even more, and suddenly I have pre-emptive nostalgia for lazy days is Berkeley, taking courses, working at LBL, living in the co-op, hanging out at the 88" cyclotron. (Honestly right now the latter alternative sounds so much more attractive, but tomorrow my view will probably change again...) Sometimes I'm glad these things aren't entirely up to me.

Oh yes, I should add that the U.C. Berkeley "letter of recommendation" form for graduate school has checkboxes with the following options:

Best student this year.
Best student in five years.
Best student in ten years.
Best student in ___ years.

That's what we're up against.

I think I'm going to change my career ambition to ``hang out at LBL and work on random experiments.'' Here's the plan: I'll just start lurking about in various experiments, helping out where I can, until I'm just a fixture in the lab and everybody will just assume I belong there. Hehe. Tonight I went up the Hill with Michelle, to the 88 inch cyclotron where her group was doing an experiment. It was wonderful: control room, radioactivity, lab coats, fume hoods, geiger counters, gamma ray spectrometers, isotopes... and a neat little experiment. I took a few pictures that I'll post when I'm not about to fall asleep on my keyboard. (But just think, they're still up there, irradiating copper foil with 8 MeV helium nucleii...)

didn't find one at the south pole?

the deadline for NASA's next Astronaut Candidate Selection is July 1. apply.

NASA selects a new class of astronauts every two years.

In a senseless bout of fortune, it looks like I am now (or soon to become, once the various papers are signed, oaths sworne, etc.) a "Computer Scientist (Trainee)" at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Cool title, excellent compensation... excellent.

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Mitt liv som Tobin

Experiments in Nomadicity

Entries tagged with career

being in motion again

grad school, etc

looking back

next semester

graduate school (or, "somebody, please, find me a career!")

choices, choices

night shift at the berkeley beam (nuclear physics on the hill)

need a job?

LBL!

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March 2020

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